


The Missing Mrs. Leonard

by moon_custafer



Category: Census - SNL Sketch
Genre: Gen, Interspecies Relationship(s), first-person narrator, to get around the Census-Taker having no name in the original sketch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23900209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_custafer/pseuds/moon_custafer
Summary: “I step back, blink, then check the peephole again in the hopes that what I’d seen was just lingering hallucinations from a Friday night out, but Mr. Leonard, ex-con street performer and husband of a bobcat, is still outside my apartment.”
Relationships: Mr. Leonard & the Census-Taker, Mr. Leonard/Bobcat (mentioned)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2





	The Missing Mrs. Leonard

**Author's Note:**

> Original sketch here: https://australiatrends.web.tv/video/census-taker-saturday-night-live__ny0zghqvwwo

_Bam! Bam!_  
Who would be knocking on my door this early on a Saturday? I’m still half-asleep and it takes me a moment to realize that whoever it is, he isn’t even knocking. The person just outside my apartment is shouting _Bam!_ in a gravelly baritone voice.

Groaning, I drag myself out of bed and squint through the door’s peephole. There’s a tall, middle-aged white guy in a Hawaiian shirt out there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and apparently studying the pattern on the hallway carpet. I step back, blink, then check the peephole again in the hopes that what I’d seen was just lingering hallucinations from a Friday night out, but Mr. Leonard, ex-con street performer and husband of a bobcat, is still outside my apartment.

How’d a dude who had trouble calculating the number of individuals in his own household managed to track me down? As a Census employee, I hadn’t even told him my name.

 _Bam!_ says Mr. Leonard again, a little less hopefully this time. I sigh, draw the bolt and open the door. He grimaces down at me, running a hand through his stiff, graying hair, and I notice how distraught the guy looks. Taking a deep breath I ask:

“Mr. Leonard? What do you want?”

“Oh man, oh man,” he groans. “I didn’t know who else to go to.”

“Yeah, um, how’d you even find this address at all?” I ask, but he’s still talking:

“It’s my wife—”

“Your wife, the bobcat?”

“Loretta, yeah. You’ve got to help me. They’ve kidnapped her!”

“Who are _they_?” I decide to skip over the detail of a bobcat apparently having the name “Loretta Leonard.” Assuming she took his name, that is— I’m going to be as crazed as this guy, if I can’t keep him on topic. Mr. Leonard bends down and hisses dramatically in my ear:

“ _The nail salon mafia_.”

“The—? Look, you’d better come inside.”

“I am inside.”

“You’re in the hall. Come inside my apartment.”

“All these details, at a time like this?!” But he shuffles in after me anyhow. Remembering our interview the other day, I find a candy bar at the back of my fridge and offer it to Mr. Leonard. It quiets him long enough for me to decide on the next few questions to ask. Me asking him questions has been the sum total of our relationship thus far, and under stress, you fall back on what you know.

“Start from—” I almost say ‘the beginning’ and think better of it— “from just before Loretta was gone, and tell me what happened. Take your time.” Swallowing the last of the candy bar, Mr. Leonard begins:

“Yesterday afternoon—” he drawls, pausing here and there in the sentence— “I went, I went down to the government office to renew my Florida passport. When I got back, my wife, was gone.”

“And the door to your place, was it locked, or unlocked?” I ask. He squeezes his eyes shut in an effort to remember.

“Unlocked,” he says at last. Then he adds: “I know, because I was able to get in.” I wait a moment before asking him my next question:

“Mr. Leonard, did you unlock the door to let yourself in?” He brightens:

“Jeez, it’s like you watched a security tape of what happened. You’re an amazing detective, I sure made the right call, coming to you.”

“The windows of your apartment: were they shut when you got home and found... Loretta... gone?” Another ten seconds of effort, and he agrees that the windows were shut. I consider this. Loretta, assuming she is in fact a literal bobcat, couldn’t have locked the door after herself, and it doesn’t sound like she climbed out a window. “Was there any kind of note?” He looks at me as though I’ve just said the stupidest thing he’s ever heard:

“She can’t read or write. She’s a bobcat.” He’s got me there, no lie. “And also, she dropped out of school.”

“I mean a ransom note, Mr. Leonard. Why do you think the ‘nail-salon mafia’” (he glances around nervously as I say the words) “are the ones who took her away?”

“Well,” he lowers his voice again, “I got a permit to run a nail salon.”

“Is someone trying to muscle in on your business?”

“No, there’s not a lot of competition for bobcat-assisted street performance.”

“I mean your salon—”

“Oh I haven’t got a salon. No, I’ve got a _permit_ to run a nail salon. The wife was going to start one, but she changed her mind.”

“So you took out a permit—”

”Yes, because...”

”Because she can’t read or write.”

”Well, and also, the people down at City Hall tend to freak out, if a bobcat come into their offices.” He chuckles. “Just run screaming every which way.” I try to drag him back to the topic:

”So what does the permit have to do with the situation?”

”Well, those permits are hard to get. I had to line up for, oh, nearly half an hour.”

”So what you’re trying to tell me is that you believe the nail-salon mafia abducted your wife, in order to demand your paperwork as a ransom?” Leonard nods:

”There you go again with the detective stuff. You’re like one of those guys on _Law & Orcas_.”

I refuse to follow his brain off the edge of that cliff.

“Mr. Leonard, do you have any reason for this theory, other than the absence of your wife and the fact that you happen to have the permit?”

”No,” he admits.

”Has anyone contacted you since your wife disappeared, claiming to know her whereabouts?”

”Yes.”

”Ok, so tell me about that.” I can tell I’m not going to make it out for brunch today. This conversation may as well happen. Mr. Leonard examines the candy-bar wrapper for a moment, then begins:

”When I got home and Loretta wasn’t there, I checked our rooms a few times, y’know, in case she was hiding. She loves to ambush me. She’s got a great little sense of humour.” He wipes his eyes. “It was a very dark time. I think it was because it was night. Then, the phone suddenly started to make this horrible noise.”

”It rang?”

”You could call it that, yeah. I didn’t know what to do, and it kept making the noise, so eventually I came over and hit it. Well... the earpiece fell off. Just like that. I mean the thing must have been really shoddily made. But when I picked it up this tiny voice came out of it.” He blinks down at me: “The voice said— _Do you have a bobcat?_ So of course I said ‘no.’” 

Of course he did. I sigh:

”Because your wife was no longer in the apartment.”

”And then I hung up. They might have been watching the place.”

Instead of punching him, I head for the coat-hooks beside my door:

”Mr. Leonard, we’re going to go to your place and check if your phone has caller ID. If not, we’re going to dial the operator and see if they can put us through to the last person who dialed your number.”

He scrambles after me, pausing only a moment to say:

”Woah. This is some real high-tech crime.”

”Sure, buddy, sure.”


End file.
